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Hillary Clinton and Trade Deals: That “Giant Sucking Sound”

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

In the 1992 Presidential campaign, Ross Perot famously said in debate:

We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It’s pretty simple: If you’re paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor,…have no health care—that’s the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don’t care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.

…when [Mexico’s] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it’s leveled again. But in the meantime, you’ve wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.

Bill Clinton, who as President got NAFTA ratified[1], disagreed. Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force Chairman and an Exchange With Reporters, 1993:

“[CLINTONI:] I also think [NAFTA] means the opportunity to go not only to Mexico but beyond Mexico into other nations in Latin America to develop stronger trading relationships that will boost our economy, the jobs, and the incomes of the American people well into the 21st century. … In my mind, there is no question that this agreement is a significant net plus for the American economy. … [M]ore and more, smart manufacturers are deciding that they should locate where they’re going to have a highly productive work force and where they’ll be reasonably close to the market and where they’ll be very flexible to change product lines on a rapid basis. I think that this will help the American economy.

So how’d that work out and who was right? Ben Schreckinger in the Atlantic:

According to a 2006 report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, [NAFTA] led to  the loss of an estimated one million American jobs in its first decade . A 2012 poll found that 53 percent of Americans wanted the government to “do whatever is necessary” to amend or leave NAFTA, while only 15 percent wanted to remain in NAFTA as-is. In 2008, Rassmussen found that 56 percent of Americans wanted NAFTA renegotiated, and Gallup found that 53 percent believed its effects on the U.S. economy were “mainly negative,” compared to 37 percent who considered them “mainly positive.” A January report by Public Citizen, a group that often criticizes free-trade agreements, found that  NAFTA had contributed to downward pressure on wages and increased income inequality in the U.S as that issue shapes up to be a defining one in 2016.M

Understandably, Hillary Clinton backtracked on NAFTA in 2008 (backtracked as a Democrat, I should say, to avoid the “marital discord” trope), but of course by then the damage was done. Eyes on Trade:

Clinton (i.e. Hillary) wants to take a “little time out” on new trade deals.

….In Bloomberg today:

Senator Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, wonders why the North American Free Trade Agreement is “continuing to drive hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people from Mexico into our country,” she said in an interview. “We just can’t keep doing what we did in the 20th century.”…

…Clinton promoted her husband’s trade agenda for years, and friends say that she’s a free-trader at heart. “The simple fact is, nations with free-market systems do better,” she said in a 1997 speech to the Corporate Council on Africa. “Look around the globe: Those nations which have lowered trade barriers are prospering more than those that have not.”

Maybe the Senator is looking at the data coming in from the NAFTA experiment, maybe she was watching in the 2006 midterms, when 39 fair trade candidates beat incumbents who stubbornly supported NAFTA-like trade deals or maybe she saw the polls. Whatever her motives are in her change of heart, it’s something to watch as we (very slowly) approach the Democratic primary.

“A little time out.” Now, I’m not necessarily averse to politicians who backtrack from a policies that are against my values and interests (take that, Edmund Burke) but I would like to know that they don’t then unbacktrack their backtracking, because that confuses my simple mind. And surely, as Secretary of State during Obama’s first term, she would have been privy to the negotiation of future trade deals. So what does she think about them?

Here again it makes sense to look at Hillary has to say about trade deal in Hard Choices, the baseline she laid down if she should choose to run again. Here are the findings:

Figure 1: Hillary Clinton on Trade in Hard Choices

NAFTA TTIP TISA GATS
77
78

Rather thin, especially given Clinton’s focus on commerce at State. You’ll notice, first, that oddly, or not, Clinton has nothing to say about NAFTA, unless the oblique reference to “learned the hard way” counts. And she has nothing to say about TTIP, TISA, or GATS. Here’s what she has to say about TPP:

It makes sense to reserve judgment until we can evaluate the final proposed agreement.

Well, no, it doesn’t. First, if fast track passes — Hard Choices has nothing to say about “fast track,” either — TPP is a pig in a poke; pressure will be so immense to pass it that judgment will be hard to exercise; that’s what fast track is for![2]

In a question and answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations in June, 2014, Clinton takes the same position, but this time mentions fast track:

HAASS: Is it your sense that, given where this country is, in part also given where your own party is, the Democratic Party, that it’s possible right now for the United States to give the president the authority he needs to complete the negotiations of [the Trans-Pacific Partnership]?

CLINTON: Well, he can complete the negotiations. That is ongoing. And in fact, I have been briefed that there is progress being made on the so-called TPP negotiations. The challenge — and really, what your question was about — is whether there will be what’s called fast-track authority granted to the president…

HAASS: Trade promotion authority.

CLINTON: Trade promotion authority. Right now, I think that’s not likely, but that doesn’t mean that the treaty can’t be presented and considered on its merits [yes it does, see below], and particularly if it can be used to convince the American electorate [!!], as well as the Congress, that we have to address these internal at the border barriers to our products, we have to begin to take on state capitalism, because it’s one of our biggest competitive threats, we have to be able to raise standards on goods that are going to end up in our markets one way or the other, it may be possible — and I certainly hope it will be — to make that case. But, of course, it depends upon what’s in it. And we don’t yet have the final document.

However, for the entire alphabet soup of trade deals under negotiation now — TTIP, TISA, GATS, besides TPP – not only are the negotiations, and even the texts of the deals themselves secret, the drafts can be kept secret long after passage. Contra Clinton’s view, it makes complete sense, at least in a functioning democracy, for the public to know everything that was “on the table” through the entire process ’til “the final document”; how else can people evaluate the negotiating skills of the administration, and determine whether to send them back to the table to get a better deal? Or no deal at all? What Clinton  ought to be arguing for is an open and transparent process, but — lip service to a very undefined “the hard way” for public consumption in Hard Choices aside — she doesn’t do that.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Clinton did support the Korea Free Trade Agreement: From her farewell speech to the State Department:

And certainly, adapting our force posture is a key element of our comprehensive strategy. But so is strengthening our alliances through new economic and security arrangements. We’ve sent Marines to Darwin, but we’ve also ratified the Korea Free Trade Agreement.

So how’d that work out? Dave Johnson:

EPI reported in July, 2013 that the US-Korea free trade agreement had already cost the US 40,000 jobs and increased our trade deficit by $5.8 billion. According to EPI,

The tendency to distort trade model results was evident in the Obama administration’s insistence that increasing exports under KORUS would support 70,000 U.S. jobs. The administration neglected to consider jobs lost from the increasing imports and a growing bilateral trade deficit. In the year after KORUS took effect, the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea increased by $5.8 billion, costing more than 40,000 U.S. jobs. Most of the 40,000 jobs lost were good jobs in manufacturing.

Oopsie. I guess “the little time-out” was over when the Korea deal rolled around. And Clinton at State must have “evaluated” the “proposed agreement” and exercised her “judgment” and given the deal the big thumbs up, or it would not have have passed. And guess what! We — and by “we,” I mean American workers, not the political class — “learned the hard way” again, as 40,000 jobs were lost. Granted, the Korean dealmakers aren’t in NAFTA’s league, where almost 700,000 jobs were lost, but they’re in there punching all the same. Kudos.

* * *

I’d like to close by posing three “wonky” questions on trade that Clinton — indeed, any candidate — should be pinned down on.

1) Do you believe that the negotiations and the working texts for trade deals like TPP, TTIP, TISA, and GATS should be kept secret? And as a follow-up: If not, when, if ever, do you think that records of such negotiations should be made public? Should they be censored?

2) Do you believe that the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism, which would give foreign corporations the right to sue the United States for lost profits in unaccountable trans-national courts, is a violation of state sovereignty? And a follow up: Do you believe that Achmea Insurance should have been able to sue Slovakia for lost profits because Slovakia passed a single payer system?

3) Do you believe that trade deals should abolish or water down the precautionary principle, or should they fully support it?[3]

Don’t wait for the political class to ask these questions; they never will. Ask them yourselves, if you get into a Q&A session on the campaign trail. Or phone your Congress critter’s office. Or write letters to the editor. Or even post to social media. Because, as we see from the record above, trade deals are big deals, and the Democrats shouldn’t be allowed to pose as populists unless they get very specific about policy outcomes (and none of this “share your pain” crapola, or whatever today’s version of that is; “authenticity,” or some damn thing). I may have more questions, but this should do for now. Readers, please add or improve — further questions should be asked on “ratchet” and “rollback” — and a big hat tip to alert reader Mellon for all the work on trade.

NOTES

NOTE [1] NAFTA was signed by George H. W. Bush in December 1992, and then ratified under Bill Clinton in November 1993. In debate, both Bush and Clinton disagreed with Perot.

NOTE [2] To be fair, Clinton said this on fast track in the 2008 campaign:

It’s important that we have good information to make judgments. And when I looked at some of the trade agreements that the Bush administration sent our way, I voted against CAFTA. I don’t want to give fast-track authority to this president.

Sure, but “this President” was Bush. What if Clinton were “this President”? Would she feel differently?

NOTE [3] Here is a statement on the precautionary principle from the EU:

The precautionary principle is detailed in Article 191 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (EU). It aims at ensuring a higher level of environmental protection through preventative decision-taking in the case of risk. However, in practice, the scope of this principle is far wider and also covers consumer policy, European legislation concerning food and human, animal and plant health.

Needless to say, industry doesn’t like that. Chemical Watch:

The chemical and pesticide industries are using the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations to attack the EU’s use of the precautionary principle, says an adviser to the Greens/EFA groups of MEPs.

Writing an opinion piece in the latest issue of Chemical Watch’s Global Business Briefing, environment and health adviser Axel Singhofen says the last 12 months have seen “a surge of attacks” against the precautionary principle by law firms, academics, MEPs and industry bodies. Last October, for example, 12 CEOs, including those of Bayer, BASF, Dow, Henkel, Solvay, Novartis and Syngenta, wrote to the presidents of the European Commission, Council and Parliament, calling for the formal adoption of an “innovation principle” to counterbalance what they termed “precautionary legislation”.

NOTE I know Warren says a lot, and good for her, but leftish Democrats have an unfortunate tendency to think that performative utterances are a large subset of speech acts, when in fact they are an extremely small one. “I do” is a performative utterance; it changes a real social relation. A speech on the rubber chicken circuit, or on YouTube, or even at Netroots Nation, no matter how fervent, is not. I am seeing speeches from Warren. I’m not seeing hearings. I’m not seeing investigations. I’m not seeing bills. I’m not seeing things done that legislators do.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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44 comments

  1. Christopher Dale Rogers

    Anyone who thinks there would be a change in economic priorities or foreign policy trajectory is either delusional, on crystal meths or an out and out propagandist for the neoliberal regime founded and expanded upon from Clinton’s Presidency onwards – just look at the crisis in the Ukraine as a friendly reminder of his policies, never mind the outsourcing of jobs to China of the Great Financial Crisis itself.

    Obviously, I despise the Clinton’s as much as I despise the Blair’s and their political spawn – Thatcherites the lot of them. Whilst I have numerous reservations about Elizabeth Warren – she is after all an old style Republican, I’d rather have an old style Republican running the USA than the crazed neoliberals and neocons presently running the show, be they alleged Democrats or alleged Republicans – both parties essentially failing to exist in reality from about 1995. Sad is it not that Nixon is now to the left of both legacy parties and it was not as if he himself was known for his own liberalism.

    1. trish

      “…failing to exist in reality ”
      They created this reality intentionally. failing? them? they- and their corporate cronies/partners- are existing just fine. the only ones failing are the rest of us.
      But they’ll – all of them- put on their populist costumes election time because it’s the most popular one ever. and the media loves it.

    2. Romancing the Loan

      I once met Elizabeth Warren’s young Harvard student campaign staff at a charity event. They dripped with condescension for the poors and everyone else who wasn’t them. They struck me as some of the worst people I had ever met. I think she would be another Obama.

    3. mellon

      I think the American people need to, en masse, come out and tell the politicians in no uncertain terms that these trade agreements all have to go.

      ISDS is a scam factory, we traversed all of recorded history without it perfectly well, WE DON’T NEED IT NOW We especially don’t need its limits on governments doing their job and regulating. And the noose-like ratchet- the road to privatization with no escape, has to go as well, because privatizations OFTEN FAIL. Also, “standstill” must go. The often lied about standstill that guarantees no public services can be created. In fact the ENTIRE FRAMING OF THESE FTAS which is based on the lie that privatization is always good and public services are always bad, is an abomination.

      They all have to go, and those criminal anti-democratic concepts have to go and be stricken from our trade vocabulary.

      When I vote for a politician, its for four years, period. Election term periods are so that the damage caused by any one corrupt bunch of legislators can be minimized.

      ISDS bypasses that and as such, I couldn’t find a strong enough term in our language to describe what an abuse these FTAs are. GATS is the real reason we have such horrible health care, and its existence there poisoning the future policy space has led to a lot of lying in an attempt to cover that fact and facts connected to it up. At this point, I think their whole “gridlock” excuse for doing nothing is a sham. And now they are trying to export this madness to other countries, telling them in one breath that ISDS would create corporate entitlements for US firms in entities like the UK’s NHS, and lying to us that single payer is right around the corner with the other. I’m sick of it, really sick. Clinton is not a lesser evil if she supports this madness and spouts all the usual BS.

      Our country has been taken over by a pack of professional hypocrites and crooks.

      1. Malcolm MacLeod, MD

        mellon: I am forced to give you my five star comment status. We need
        more of you sniffing out our corrupt and self-serving government’s
        foibles. Good job! Keep it up.

  2. bill

    Just so Americans don’t think Nafta was one sided, be aware that it also led to the hollowing out of Canadian manufacturing as US multinationals that had had Canadian branch plants to avoid import duties, closed these plants and concentrated production in lower cost southern US plants. Many Canadians think that Nafta was a gift to the US and a rip off for Canada.

    2. different clue

      Canadians who think NAFTA was a rip off for Canada AND a gift to the US should read some of the articles and comments about NAFTA here to disabuse themselves of that delusional notion. What gift, after all, has America recieved from NAFTA? Loosing a million jobs is no gift. Millions more illegal immigrants than before NAFTA because NAFTA was designed on purpose to exterminate the peasant corn-growing backbone of rural Mexican society was no gift to America.
      What NAFTA was, was a gift to the Overclass in all three countries at the expense of the majority in all three countries. I remember your own Mulroney selling NAFTA as hard as or harder than our own Reagan. And of course it was some Canadian company or other which made the gas additive MTBE and sued California to stop California from preventing the further use of the water pollutant MTBE. The provision which allowed that company to do that was no gift to America.

      1. Otter

        To close the circle, a US company sued Canada over MTBE.
        Mulroney needed to sell harder because he had harder opposition.

        A gift to the overclass. As is the gift of squabbling among ourselves over abuse sizing.

  4. The Dork of Cork

    Trade as currently structured makes demand unusable.
    They know this.
    The question is if they know this then why are they doing it.
    The objective must be political and spirtual rather then economic.

    The coming of Apple to Cork in 1980~ signaled the end of the city as a real working town.
    In more ways then one it was the end of Fordism. (a flawed albeit partially effective system of demand management)
    Vast amounts of Kerosene is now burned by system mamangers so as to stich this monster together.
    Very little energy / capital remains for real intrinsic demand.
    Almost everthing is lost in translation.

  5. jfleni

    RE: Hillary & Trade Deals
    She MUST toe the line on what Billy-BJ did before, because that was what his posse of “contibutors” wanted and needed; she will never reject NAFTA, even though almost everybody else does!

    Easy way to end the republic: Make sure that the “two chickens in every pot” disappear to someplace else! And the situation is getting close to that now!

    1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

      “You’ve got a republic – if you can keep it”. And why can’t we keep it? Because 6 companies control 98% of the media that America consumes. Those 6 find candidates that will push the corporo-fascist business as usual war agenda through the simplest of narratives. In 2008 it was “oh, oh, look, it’s a young black guy who acts hip!”. This time around it will be “oh, oh, look, it’s someone we’ve heard of who would be the first woman president”.
      Rupert thinks Hilary is swell, and that tells you absolutely everything you need to know.
      It’s the cackle when she blithely talks about starting a new war that sends the chills for me:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvhBoF_pCHo

        1. Robert

          “We got a republic, next time let’s try a democracy.”
          Once the rule of law(i.e., the republic) goes, as epitomized under our current would-be-dictator-masquerading-as-a-former-Professor-of-Constitutional-Law, you might as well give up on salvation based on democracy (rule of the masses), as part of Obama’s M.O. is to push, pull or drag so many illegals into the country as to guarantee the most peculiar form of despotism: rule by non-citizens

  6. digi_owl

    More and more i suspect that whatever flag a corporation wraps itself in is a flag of convenience, on par with the flag found on the stern of many, if not most, ships.

  7. Globus Pallidus XI

    Well said, kudos!

    I know it’s by design, but it is nevertheless annoying when the corporate press debates a candidate’s words and branding while ignoring their record. So Hillary starts to talk about opposing anti-worker trade deals, and all we will hear is gushing enthusiasm for her ‘new’ populist approach. And if she gets elected president, and immediately goes the other way, the silence will be deafening, and no official reporter will dare raise the subject. Sigh.

    For another take on the disconnect between Saint Hilary’s words and deeds, check out this:

    http://globuspallidusxi.blogspot.com/2014/07/hilary-clinton-talks-like-eleanor.html

    1. Ping

      IMO the contrast between words and deeds, outright lies in campaign promises and policies that were never intended to be fulfilled and the superficiality of image creation has gone to new lows.

      Here in the bizarre world of Arizona politics, the focus group rebranding of crazies in primaries for governor has begun in the most blatantly obvious ways.

      Martha McSally ex military fighter pilot who previously campaigned on scorched earth for social security and other public support in favor of corporate giveaways, has been transformed into a big ’empathy’ teddy bear in TV commercials. Republican backers have given her a complete style makeover, softer hair style in a feminine dress replacing her butch military look.

      Yet unless they’ve given her a brain/personality transplant she doesn’t give a whit about the average person let alone relate to her new identity- empathy. Pathetic.

      Have you seen Rick Perry’s new eyeglasses? Trying for a more intellectual look to counter his numbskull sound bites.

  8. diptherio

    I haven’t been following Warren too closely, but it’s no shock to hear that she’s behaving like a politician and not a states-person…quelle surprise there….

    1. Worker-Owner

      Ms. Warren did not get where she is by chance. She is a polished and truly professional politician with a better than average track record and a good position from which to promote her views … which are better than some, for sure. But none of us know her outside the realm she spends most of her energy in.

      1. diptherio

        It might be irresponsible to judge before all the evidence is in, but can I be blamed for assuming the worst of every politician until it’s proven otherwise, beyond the shadow of a doubt? Guilty until proven innocent seems a reasonable rule-of-thumb to apply to politicians, given our history.

        1. hunkerdown

          History and present. Would you be extremely wary of a fish caught in a known polluted lake, or would you have to “eat it to see what’s in it”?

  10. RUKidding

    As with Obama, I voted for Bubba Clinton the first time but whilst holding my nose & with great skepticism. In both cases, I refused to vote for either the 2d go-round. Hillary the Inevitable will not even benefit from one vote from moi… not that it matters on whit. It appears (at this stage) that the PTB have chosen HRC to be the next Talking Head, and so it shall be.

    Ross Perot, oddball that he was, talked too much truth for the Lords of the Universe, and he got too many votes. Ergo, so-called “third parties” had to be demonized & kept far far far away from the debate platform and any real attention in the M$M. I am constantly spanked for advocating voting for what is misleadingly called “third” parties. “How can you waste your vote?” I hear from unsuspecting marks, who actually believe that voting makes a difference.

    Elizabeth Warren? Yeah, I don’t trust her. Duly noted that, while she has actually proposed some decent legislation vis financial issues, it’s never ever ever taken up by her “Democratic” colleagues. Warren may be in a holding position to run for Pres some day (or not). If she ever does, however, it will be yet another situation of “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.”

    1. fresno dan

      “I am constantly spanked for advocating voting for what is misleadingly called “third” parties. “How can you waste your vote?” I hear from unsuspecting marks, who actually believe that voting makes a difference.”

      I hear you – there is only one good reply – “How can you waste your vote, voting for a republican or a democrat???”

      It seems to me we are in much worse times than when Perot put a real alternative before people. It is simply sad that it appears a credible third party can’t rise up – I imagine there are all sorts of nefarious ballot rules that effectively quash any their party attempt.

      And O how I remember how Perot was mocked by all the “learned” economists – you would have thought Perot had said the sun rises in the West, and how no moral, right thinking person could possibly be opposed to “free trade.” But to be fair, some acknowledged there would be winners and losers. They just never clarified all the winners would be the rich, and all the losers would be everyone else….

  11. Doug Terpstra

    Hmmm, nine bucks for Hillary’s version of The Audacity of Mendacity. I’m almost tempted to throw away the time and money. But I do wish books by wannabe spokeswhores for the kleptocracy were available in condensed translations, like this on the TPP SHAFTA scam:

    “Because the TPP conspiracy is still ongoing in total secrecy, it makes sense to suspend reason or debate until it’s properly ratified.”

    An excellent post, Lambert. I’ll think I’ll wait for your color-coded analysis of the book, if Phoenix doesn’t freeze over first.

    2. jrs

      Of course it actually makes sense to reject the thing entirely with harsh judgements, even if it was all rainbows and unicorns, just for the secrecy alone.

  12. fresno dan

    http://equitablegrowth.org/2014/07/30/nafta-disasta-wednesday-focus-july-30-2014/

    I would be interested in readers analyses on DeLong’s assertions (if he is wrong, why is he wrong – data and links are helpful)
    ========================================
    The argument that Jeff does make is a very U.S.-focused, anti-cosmopolitan argument. The seventeen words I quoted above are the only words in which anything outside the United States appears as anything other than a means to a U.S.-centric and a U.S.-focused analysis. And this, I think, is wrong. The U.S. was a global hyperpower of a relative strength never before seen in human history. The U.S. is still a ne plus ultra superpower of a relative magnitude exceeded only perhaps in the mid-nineteenth century when Britain was the only industrial nation and the sun never set on the British Empire. A hegemon of such a magnitude has a strong moral obligation to the world as a whole–and to its own long-run comfort and, indeed, survival once it ceases to be a hyperpower–to be cosmopolitan, and to look at the broad effects of its policies on the world outside its borders.
    ======================================
    Davos man….

  13. jo6pac

    I am seeing speeches from Warren. I’m not seeing hearings. I’m not seeing investigations. I’m not seeing bills. I’m not seeing things done that legislators do.

    Says it all and great take down on hillabillie.

    1. EricT

      Just go onto youtube and type Elizabeth Warren. There’s some wonderful footage of her grilling bankers and the Justice department regarding enforcement. You shouldn’t be so dismissive and cynical to the point of ignorance.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        Wowsers. You’re satisfied with a politician’s performance because they grilled somebody on YouTube?!?!?! Total bankruptcy of Democratic tribalists and “progressives,” right there in one sentence. “Footage,” forsooth.

  18. cwaltz

    I don’t dislike Hillary. However, I saw nothing following her bowing out of the Democratic primary(when she basically let the Democratic plutocracy decide who was best) or during the Obama admin that compels me to vote for her. As a matter of fact, her time as SoS made me less likely to vote for her. It essentially seemed to say we’re going to continue to do the same foolish things over and over even though we know it’s not the direction most Americans want.

  19. Jeff N

    yes, you have it right in the last paragraph. if you ask them a tough question, they’ll answer a related/different question. there is no way to stop these people.

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